India's presence at Davos is the largest ever for any country in the past many years. The reason, as Rahul Bajaj explained at a media briefing on India Everywhere, is after last year’s meet, Indian corporates realised not much was known in the world at large about the strides India has taken in recent times.So, a number of the larger corporates brainstormed and came up with the idea of India Everywhere. The idea is to tell the world what is so incredible about India, so people can shed old ideas about the country, he said at the opening day of the World Economic Summit 2006.India is now the second fastest growing economy in the world and has the largest talent pool with favourable demographics, but all this is not known well enough. There are problems to be sure, Bajaj said, but these are not insurmountable. Things can only improve on every front, including the political, he added.Quoting the example of Bihar, where after 15 years, the earlier government was voted out and a new one voted in, he said, at the Central level too, the present government is handicapped by its dependence on the Left parties. He added that the Left is bound to see reason.Bajaj warned, ‘‘After all the efforts to showcase India as an emerging power to contend with in the world, if we don’t do our homework and undertake necessary reforms, our credibility will be questioned. If three years down the line, we come again to Davos with a similar message then no one will believe us.’’A certain growth momentum has been built up but if that has to be maintained and we are to move from 7-8 per cent to 9 per cent, then we need more reformd. Seconding Bajaj’s view, Y.C. Deveshwar and Nandan Nilekani elaborated on the point.According to Deveshwar, India Everywhere is reflective of a new confident India. There are big challenges facing the country, the biggest being to have inclusive growth - i.e. growth not only in the IT and manufacturing sectors, but also in agriculture.The way forward, in his view, is through public-private partnerships. Our demographic advantage will remain an advantage only if reform happens in agriculture too and can tackle rural poverty. India Everywhere in Nilekani’s perspective is about telling the world that India is a vibrant democracy despite its huge divergences, how we are an economic success story and also showcase India as a soft power by telling the world about our culture, arts and entertainment.For that reason, the effort this year is to have as many India-specific events as possible. So, there is an India Happy Hour at all the bars in Davos every evening, there is a special India event every night and on Saturday, a gala India soiree featuring people like Shyamak Davar and Usha Uthup.The key message that India wants to send across to the world is that our success is not based on state-driven capitalism but is rather the result of coporates, who, against incredible odds, have established world-class businesses. It’s about telling the world about the emergence of the global Indian entrepreneur.According to Bajaj, there’s an important distinction between China and India and this is that China’s efficiency is the result of throwing more and more resources whereas in India’s case it is more because of greater efficiency in the use of resources because India does not have that kind of resources. India is also more WTO-compliant than China and that also needs to be factored into by the world, he added.
